My first visit to Socrates Conference
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| Image credits: Softwerkskammer |
This year was the first time that I visited the Socrates Conference in Soltau. There were many things that made me look forward to it. At first it has been a long time since I had visited a conference in real life, so I was excited to see that many people in person again. I was also curious, how many people from different countries would participate. My hope was to get exposed to topics that are completely new for me and also learn about different approaches and opinions about aspects of software engineering that I am already familiar with. I always enjoy talking to people that are passionate about software crafting.
As I enjoyed it a lot, I decided to share my experiences that I made during the event.
How does the conference work?
Socrates is a non-profit and community run (un)conference about all things related to software craft. The focus is on creating an inclusive environment where everyone is able to learn together, connect and participate. There is a lot of help for people who are new to the conference or software crafting in general. At first there is a Foundation Day with sessions covering foundational topics like TDD or Refactoring intended to open up the world of crafting and testing for newcomers. The conference also supports the concept of a Conference Buddy offering support for persons who are at a conference for the first time. The main part of the conference is a 2-day Open Space where people present sessions they would like to talk about, which means that there is no fixed agenda before the event as this evolves depending on the participants interests.
How was the actual experience?
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| A still empty schedule |
I already got to know some people during the World Cafe that took place on Thursday evening. Some told me, that they had been attending the conference for many years and always wanted to go back because of the unique experience. A running group was announced that started in the morning, which I joined throughout the whole conference. In the following 2 days the main part of the conference, an Open Space, took place. I was really amazed how many people were eager to present a session, so that the schedule would never run out. The topics of the sessions were quite diverse, including TDD, clojure, hiring, code katas, agile working and many others. And also sheep :-) The format of each session was quite open, ranging from presentations, discussions or other formats like 4-2-2-all. You did not have to be an expert for a topic to propose a session, it was ok to just ask other people to teach you. To give you an idea, I attended the following sessions throughout the conference:
- Note-taking and knowledge management
- Test Commit Revert
- How bad are mono repos actually?
- How can we cultivate a learning culture
- Experiences with trunk-based-development
- Non-binary people in binary organizations
- Clojure Workshop
- Building your own keyboard AMA
- Unit test Anti-patterns
On top of all the sessions for knowledge sharing, there were a lot of things going on in the evening as well. You could choose from playing boardgames, powerpoint karaoke and much more in the evening or going for a run or doing morning meditation. All of this was run by the participants.
Things I took from the conference
Overall the organizers managed to created a super inclusive atmosphere where everyone could come as they are. People were super friendly, I had a lot of great discussions in the evening or in between the sessions. I learned a lot during the various sessions and enjoyed the flexible schedule. And food was great :-) In total: An awesome experience, I hope that I can be part of this next year!
Special thanks to my employer jambit who acts as a sponsor for this event, which made it possible for me to attend this great event. Not to forget my colleague Ajit who is part of the Socrates organizer team and introduced me to the conference in the first place.